The NHS is asking the public to share their views as part of a review of services provided at Liverpool Women's Hospital.

It's the next stage in a process to improve care for women and newborn babies, which was announced in March 2016.

Between 29 June and 15 August 2016 people can learn more about the reasons midwives, nurses, and doctors believe that changes are necessary, and comment on whether they understand and support the case for change.

Dianne Brown, director of nursing and midwifery at Liverpool Women's Hospital, said: “This isn't about cutting services, this is about our midwives, nurses and doctors wanting to make what we have even better.

“The care we provide now is safe, but this is because staff are working incredibly hard to work around some of the problems we face and this is not a long-term solution. We want every single woman that accesses our services to have the very best experience possible, and that means reducing the need to be transferred between hospitals by ambulance when seriously ill.

“We know that women and families who use and depend on our services are passionate about them, and so are we. It's really important to us that the public get involved in this process and help us to make the changes we need to give Liverpool and Merseyside services that are the very best they can be.”

Dr Fiona Lemmens from NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group, which is leading the review of services as part of the Healthy Liverpool programme, said: “While many women will have a positive experience at Liverpool Women's, we know that the experience for certain groups of patients, in particular the most seriously ill women and babies who require complex care, is not as good as it could be.

“We think the women and newborn babies of Liverpool deserve the best services, which meet the highest standards - if we don't change we can't meet those standards.

“No decisions have been made yet and we need the public to share their views this summer to help us develop options.”

People have until Monday 15 August to share their views. Views gathered during July and August will be used to develop a number of possible options for delivering women's and newborn babies' services in the future. These will be subject to formal public consultation, which is currently expected to happen in late 2016 or early 2017.

For more information see our dedicated page on the consultation.